The Igarashi Design Interface Project at the Japan Science and Technology Agency is developing software that allows the user to draw in physical space on a mannequin to generate digital patterns that can be manipulated in software. There are a few basic tools for creating sweeps of fabric, cut-outs and seam lines. I can see this being really useful for other fabric products like personal protective equipment (where fit and so ergonomics are vital), pushchair hoods (which can be made up of sveral compound curves in 3-D – not easy to model in 3-D software alone) etc. I hope this is developed further…and soon.
